Ultimate DC ToM 01 A Night in the Desert
by ShiningIdeal
Summary: A rough start for Zatanna as she begins on the steps of a new adventure. Going out with a group of friends after a stage show in Vegas changes all their lives.


Disclaimer: Zatanna is the intellectual property of DC Comics and I make no claims of ownership. The remaining characters however are of my creation.   
  
Notes: This is the first 'issue' of an ongoing series as part of the Ultimate DC fanfiction project. To see the newest works and material by all of the authors, visit the page in my profile.  
  
A Night in the Desert  
  
After all the work getting here, she still did her own makeup. She didn't know why, and didn't really bother all that much at trying to figure it out. She knew better than most people that the rituals people go through are a big part of what kept them sane. And in the entertainment business, anything that held your head on tight was a blessing in disguise.  
  
She looked over at the outfit that the casino had requested she wear again with a deep sigh. They certainly never made male magicians go on stage in fishnets. A shame too, Houdini certainly had a nice pair of legs she thought to her self, improving her mood just a touch. Not that she was going to let it go that easily.  
  
Right on cue there was a knock at the door which she answered. Marty her agent was there, cellphone lightly clipped to his belt like a sword in its sheath and that self-assured smirk playing at his lips. Why is it that everyone in show business uses an abbreviation of her name she wondered for only a moment before having it confirmed.  
  
"Zats, darling.. You aren't dressed yet." He said with a little tsk of his tongue.   
  
She sighed and sat down on the dressing chair, making a little face of disappointment. "Marty, you know how I feel about you calling me that. And why the hell do I have to play Vegas? You know, once upon a time magicians played for kings and lords, now I have to play to a bunch of senior citizens, frat boys and drunks?"  
  
"Well hun, now if they want to make enough to not get kicked out of their plush apartments they play in Vegas in hopes of getting a road show." He rested his hand on her shoulder, a supportive thing, a smile to her reflected through the mirror. "I know the costume is a little more revealing than you might like but you are a performer, its a costume. You are the youngest illusionist to ever play Vegas."  
  
She nodded a little in acknowledgement. She wondered sometimes if the others were like her, purveyors of more than just cheap parlor tricks but she could never find out without giving away her own secret. And everyone knows what magicians never do.  
  
She stood to walk behind the changing screen. "I will be on stage on time, always am. Thanks for the flowers."  
  
"I knew tulips were your favorites, but they aren't from me this time. Seems you have a friend amongst the 'seniors, drunks and frat boys' after all."  
  
"A friend?" she asked as she fought with the tie lace up strings of the black and white faux tux corset. "Who?"  
  
"Cute girl, named Veruca. Said she was an old friend." His face scrunched up just a bit. "This isn't gonna be a public relationships issue is it?"  
  
She rolled her eyes, coming out from behind the screen, pulling up the gloves. "Only in your dreams. She was my roommate in high school. I didn't know she was out here."   
  
"I'll give her a pass to come back if you like," he offered in an off hand voice.  
  
"Yeah, do that." She settled the top hat on her dark hair and held her hands out with a smile. "How do I look?"   
  
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"The Breathtaking Zatanna hmm?" Veruca asked with a chuckle over her fries. "Quite the outfit they got you in too. Remember when you used to be modest?"  
  
"Ha ha," she deadpanned with a sigh, punishing the mozarella stick for the frustration by drowning it deep in marinara sauce. "What are you doing in Vegas anyway? I heard you were going to school on the coast."  
  
"A bunch of guys from school came out to the desert for the big lunar eclipse and we just sort of ended up out here. Actually, I thought if you weren't busy you might like to come out with us Saturday night. I promise none of the neopagans will bite your head off for your 'sarcastic manner' of cheapening the idea of magic."  
  
Zatanna's face wrinkled with that, a hint of amusement playing in her eyes that she couldn't control. If they only knew, she thought. "Well, I don't know. I have a show early that evening. I will probably be tired."  
  
Veruca downed the rest of the coffee with a little smirk. "When was the last time you went out with a group of people your age for fun? I mean you didn't even go to our prom."  
  
"First, I was there and second, you go to Berkeley, how normal can they be?" She winked, begrudgingly accepting the fact that she was enjoying seeing a friend after all.   
  
"Performing at it doesn't count hun. But I can tell you already agreed to it when you stopped protesting." Veruca glanced at the check before flashing a pleasant smile to her friend. "Rich performer girl picks up the check for the poor downtrodden college types, right?"  
  
"Yeah, sure. Bum. I'll see you Saturday."  
  
As her friend left, she mused a little about the fact that maybe she was right and it would be good for her. She honestly couldn't remember the last time she went out for fun and wasn't worried about some responsibility or her image. She was twenty-one, not fifty, she reminded herself while looking down at the massacred appetizer platter. Time to let my hair down.  
  
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The week went by quickly for everyone involved. Perhaps it was the full moon coming up or just the busy nature around her but Zatanna felt more energetic this week. She had to give the stage crews here their credit, while they may have made her wear less than she would like they were complete professionals and she never had to complain about a missed mark.   
  
Standing on the strip in the glittering lights of the artificial stars around her she was pleased. She even forced Marty to shop for her on the occasion with the rule strictly normal clothing. While eventually she will have to remember that sending out fifty year old father figures to buy clothes for a night out can be dangerous, he didn't do bad. A nice difference from the revealing stage outfit, the comfy sweater and jeans would be better for the desert anyway. Less danger of sand invasions.  
  
She didn't have to wait long, Veruca and her slightly antiquated van pulled through the streets to where she waited. The drive out to the campsite was quiet, she mainly tried to get the names straight of the half-dozen other college kids she was going to be spending the night with.  
  
The night air was crisp and sweet, the eclipse hadn't started yet but the stars were still clearer than she had seen in weeks of city shows. The others made the fire and hauled out sleeping bags and for a few minutes she really forgot that she was anything but another one of the group.   
  
As time passed the silly routines of college kids began, first one bottle passed and then another. Zatanna smiled and joined in, her face warmed by the fire and the company. Letting her hair down brought out a mirth she nearly forgot she had and so she took her first drink since becoming of legal age.   
  
Waiting for the disappearance of the moon in the sky, the conversation started and finally she felt comfortable enough to jump in.   
  
"So, your argument is there is no such thing as nothing? That everything is something because when you define it you give it a quality and it can't be nothing?" She asked, a touch amused and perhaps even a bit incredulous to the philosophy major across the fire from her.  
  
He shook his head a touch. "That would be dumbing it down to the extreme, but the essence is right."  
  
A couple of the girls with them giggled, setting off from the rest of the group as the moon showed the first signs of the shadow cast across it. A little confused Zatanna leaned over to Veruca. "Where are they going?"  
  
"Oh, those are the girls I warned you about. I know how you feel about most of their crowd but they think its a holy occasion and wanted to go take peyote and dance under the stars or something. We figured they were fine as long as they didn't get in the way of anyone else."  
  
Satisfied the girls were harmless, the conversation shifted to the newest movies out. Not having much time for other forms of entertainment, Zatanna excused herself to take a walk in the cool air.  
  
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Zatanna was sitting and thinking about the guilty pleasure of simply being normal, it was something other people just took for granted. She couldn't remember a night this fun in years, the relaxation, the rush of being just another girl. A line of thought that was interrupted with a shriek back at the campfire.  
  
Natural instinct took over, to see what was wrong and her footfalls on the sand came faster. Thank god she wasn't still in heels, she thought to herself. She expected a scorpion or maybe someone had drunk too much and fallen by the fire. The perils of an adventure in the wild, but what she found was something she wasn't prepared for.   
  
One of the two girls from earlier was dead, unmistakably so with her bones wrenched so far that it was clear they were not only broken but no longer connected. The shriek could have come from any of them, the other girl she had been with was shaking and pale, looking sick and wrung with sweat in the cold night air.  
  
"What happened," Zatanna demanded as she stepped back into the ring of firelight. The others were noticeably shaken and she couldn't blame them. No one expected to see this.  
  
The girl simply looked up with scared eyes, sad eyes that were ready to burst into tears or wax over in catatonic dread. "We were out and chanting for the spirit quest, and suddenly, something happened..."   
  
Zatanna closed her eyes for a moment, biting back a sarcastic comment. It never seemed to fail, take a clueless would-be occultist, put them into a situation where they think they know what they are doing, and they always manage to find an ancient burial mound or an angry spirit or a thirsty blood god. She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Describe to me what happened as well as you can."  
  
The girl closed her eyes, looking away to the girl's dead body. She shuddered. "Her eyes turned color first, like she was possessed or something and they glowed with a green light. Then she started turning and twisting like a rag doll. She chased me and I was so scared and when we got back here, I screamed when I felt her touch me. Then the fire seemed to banish whatever it was and she fell down."  
  
"We should be so lucky," she murmured under her breath before looking at the others. "Does anyone have a phone?"  
  
One Of the guys reached down to his pocket, tugging out a slim silver cell phone and flipped it up with a look. "No signal out here."  
  
"Of course not, things are never easy. We need to get back to the van."   
  
"But what about Angela's body?" The glass-eyed girl asked, the poor girl was out of her depth and still shaking like a leaf in a monsoon.  
  
"We can't do anything about it. But whatever did this may not be gone and we have to get out of here."  
  
Veruca was the first to stand, easing up the other girl and the others followed. Even now she was struggling to come to grasps with it, looking aside to Zatanna. "Do you think they just had a bad trip with the hallucinogens? Angela fell pretty hard."  
  
Zatanna just nodded as they left the camp, the fire still burning, reflecting over the broken body of the girl who only wanted an innocent experience in expanding her mind. Hopefully, they would all be away and this could be a bad memory and a little money for a psychiatrist.   
  
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Unfortunately, as sure as the words had come out of her mouth, things were never that easy. She felt the pressure before any of the others seemed to, but before they got to the van, they all found themselves stopping. The force of ennui holding them in place. The collective urge and pressure to not move beyond this point.   
  
"Spite!" She called out with a growl in the back of her throat at the complications. She wasn't going to get out of this place without a better plan. Unfortunately, better plans left the others in danger.   
  
Lessons in the theories never seemed to cover what to do in the practical situations. Never covered lessons on making a snap decision where other people's lives may be on the line. "Veruca, you and the others, wait by the fire. You," she pointed to the other girl, "show me where the two of you were."  
  
The now timid girl only nodded as they parted ways. She hoped that the fire would keep away any malignant spirits, but couldn't hope for anything more.   
  
They crossed the desert and tried to backtrack over their steps as well as the girl could. Having run back rapidly she couldn't watch anything closely. Zatanna was silently grateful for the time to gather her thoughts and be thankful that with the eclipse and the night, the carrion shouldn't be out in force.  
  
When they finally reached the sight, she almost knew it before the girl confirmed it. More than just the disturbed sand set it off, it was the malignant spirit this place seemed to hold. Something impure had been here, for longer than just this night. She looked at the girl, fighting back the urge to chastise her stupidity and looked down at the trampled pipe, looking for more clues.  
  
The search was frustrating, knowing the others were in danger clouded her mind and the fact that whatever had happened here before these girls was likely long since past. The girl was sitting and crying, there was no better time for this.  
  
Standing up straighter and clearing her thoughts and cleansing her body with a pure breath, she spoke sharply into the night, focusing on the words and conveying her energies through them.   
  
"Lufhctaw stirips, wohs em taht hcihw ym seye tonnac dinf," she beseeched the air around her and let the energy flow, a token gift of her soul and her belief to the spirits she hoped could guide her. Many would never realize their hand if their senses were not accustomed to them. Her eyes though caught a glimmer of starlight amidst the sand.  
  
She knelt before it, brushing away the sand and found a tarnished piece of silver that had been hammered flat and carved with the symbols of the moon's phases on it and other markings of binding and shackling. She looked up at the eclipsed moon with a frown of worry.  
  
Worry that was only worsened as she now saw the girl standing over her, watching her analytically. Another voice spoke, not the timid girl's own voice. "Had I known a true shaman was amongst them I would have begun my celebration sooner. When I dine upon your soul and dress in your skin, I shall again truly be of this world."  
  
Zatanna jumped to her feet, now almost shouting out the commands to the air, "Srotsecna, dleihd ym ydob dna lous!"  
  
But the hollow otherworldly voice only laughed, goading her and didn't reach out for the shielded spirit with its gossamer threads that would be stronger than steel. It turned once its borrowed face once towards the camp and with a last breath, the girl fell dead to the ground, and she was alone with worry.  
  
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The smell of fresh death on the air was repugnant and sweet at the same time, in that sickly sort of scent that made skin crawl. She wondered how many times she would have to smell that in her lifetime, each time she hoped it would be the last.  
  
The corpses lay on the ground, twisted and torn, the injuries so odd, as if they were puppets that had their strings cut and they had fallen into odd corners and crumpled into nothing. The smell of offal from the rending of intestines greeted her, the philosophy student from earlier and Veruca sat over him, the one drawing out the entrails. Or at least Veruca's body. It still breathed she noted, and she bit her lip. Please, let her not be trapped seeing what it is doing with her body.  
  
She, it Zatanna reminded herself, looked up from the horrendous deeds and stands, a cruel grin spreading over her friend's features. "It certainly took you long enough to get back," it spoke with an odd resounding voice, laced with Veruca's but overlaid with the sound of another voice, a crueller voice devoid of the humanity she knew was in her friend.  
  
She bit her tongue, "Foul possessor, do not tempt me. Leave her now, leave this place and I will not harm you."   
  
A hand sprung up from Veruca's side, a bolt of blackened energy, a crackling bolt which seemed to suck the light out of the air around it, arced towards her. It connected with the silver shield of her aura, lighting up the area around them with a spark. Zatanna concentrated as the shield held.   
  
Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hands, drawing a set of sigils into the air with her fingers as she practically shouted out, "Stnemele fo rai esir dna evird tuo eht naelcnu!"  
  
The air around her whipped up, circling around Veruca with a howling whistle. Faces could almost be seen in the rapid breeze, moaning as they pounded into the possessed. But at the center, the skinchanger laughed in Veruca's body, the laugh an uncomfortable piercing thing.   
  
"Don't tell me that was your best exorcism spell. Oh this is going to be delicious."   
  
And with that, Veruca's body lurched forward with an impossible speed but an awkward sense of movement. For half a moment while she could think, she was reminded of movie zombies with that sort of behavior. Zombie, perhaps she could use that. But she dropped backward, sidestepping the blow and pushing the hand away.   
  
"I don't know who bound you here, but the traditions that taught me relied on physical practice and discipline." She says with a smirk. Even with the physical aid from the possession, she knew she could fight to a standstill if she had to. Unfortunately so did the spirit. It faded back and watched her a moment.  
  
"This is funny, but tell me, what are you going to do when you run out of food and water? I don't need them and if neither of us can win."   
  
She faltered a little, it was true, if she couldn't break the possession then she had no other options. "The moon bound you once, how do I know you aren't bluffing?"  
  
Another laugh through the host's body reverberated. "You are truly a fool, girl. Do you know this girl hates you at heart? I can read it all in here. She was jealous of you."  
  
Zatanna shook her head, it was dodging the question, trying to distract her. Veruca was always her closest friend in high school. She took a deep breath watching him. "You can't fool me, skinchanger. Are you that inept of a spirit that you have to make up lies to assault me with?"  
  
Veruca's body grins cruelly again. "Eventually you will die, I will have your body. And there is nothing you can do about it. I will not leave this body until then, do you want to see what happens when you sleep?"  
  
She shuddered, watching the girls body. If he truly wouldn't leave, she had little choice. This spirit couldn't be allowed freedom into the city. How many people would die. How long until someone else could deal with it.  
  
"The moon still has power over you," she says, calmly. Watching. "The moon serves me, do you truly wish to anger me?"  
  
"You are weak, you will not touch me while I am here. Women are too soft, too easy to manipulate. I called to the idiots who freed me, and through them I will take you."  
  
She frowned, her knuckles tightening in her hand, watching. The beast was strong, but couldn't deny its weakness. She looked away.   
  
"I am strong enough to do what is needed," is the only answer she was able to find. The options were running out and she looked up to the crescent of the moon slowly revealing itself from the shadow of the eclipse.   
  
The beast in her friend's body reached down, dipping fingers into the gore of the body, a smirk as Veruca's hand flickered the blood and humors of the body at Zatanna. She shuddered, wondering why she ever let herself be this complacent.  
  
Magic required a balance, power in one sphere meant sacrifice in another and she knew she wouldn't be able to touch meat for some time after this. She knew it would be a long time before she could let her hair down again. But it was what had to be done, and in this struggle there were no innocents.  
  
Her hands lifted in the air ahead of her, lacing fingers together and speaking. "Simetra, retnuh, sseddog, tnarg em rouy sworra, erup dna eurt," she intoned in a solemn tone. She was rewarded as the creature first showed fear as a set of silver arrows began to form around her.   
  
An extension of her finger towards Veruca sealed his fate, as the moon was growing he was bound into the new body. The arrows of solid moonlight tore through the body of her friend. This is why she was warned not to make them, they were weapons to be used against her. She hoped her father was happy, she finally was able to pass this test.  
  
Tears stung her eyes as she stepped up to cup Veruca's body, the blood staining the sand below her. "Please forgive me." She said lightly, knowing nothing else to say.   
  
Balance, she reminded herself, was required. And she closed her eyes, drawing her fingers over the girl's wounds and in her hand a pair of seeds rested. She would plant them before she could sleep.  
  
And by the time the bodies were buried, the sun was rising on a new day. 


End file.
